Evening Stars Read Online Free PDF

average man-on-the-street. He’d held out her camera bag and said, You left this on the bench back there.
    She’d smiled and thanked him, then had playfully asked, Are you going to hit on me now?
    He’d shaken his head. No, but I will tell you that you shouldn’t use autofocus in this setting. It’s letting in too much light, and you’ll lose contrast in the scene.
    An unusual response. She’d studied him more closely, taking in the gold flecks in his brown eyes and shape of his mouth. He’d lacked the deep tan of a surfer—no surprise there. Engineer, she thought. Or computer science major.
    You do like girls, right? she’d asked.
    He’d smiled at her, then. A slow, sexy smile that had made her toes curl in her Keds and caused the noise around them to fade into the background.
    I’ll take the pictures, he’d said, reaching for the camera. You make your notes.
    I’m writing an article for The Daily Bruin. She paused. That’s the paper at UCLA.
    I know what it is.
    You’re out of college?
    Yup. Just got a job at a software company here in Mischief Bay. He’d slipped the strap around his neck and started making adjustments on the camera. I went to MIT.
    Smart, great smile and he had a job. Things were looking up. I’m Averil, she’d said.
    Kevin.
    He hadn’t hit on her, but he had asked her out. It had been three dates before he’d kissed her and nearly four months before they’d had sex. The day after she’d graduated, he’d proposed. She’d said yes to him and a full-time job at California Girl magazine.
    “About the pills,” she said, stepping into his office.
    “You said you were ready. You said you wanted to have kids. Have you changed your mind?”
    “No. It’s just...” She took a step forward. “There’s a lot going on.”
    “What’s going on now that isn’t going on all the time? We’re settled in the house, we have money in the bank. You have your job and your novel. What are you waiting for?”
    She wished he hadn’t mentioned the novel. The one she was supposed to be writing. The one that was little more than a few notes and a hundred and forty-seven false starts. Saying you were going to write a novel was easy. Actually writing it—not so much.
    “I’m feeling pressured,” she said, hearing the defensiveness in her voice and not liking it. “It’s so soon.”
    “Our fifth anniversary is in a few months. It wasn’t exactly a shotgun wedding.”
    “No, but...”
    He looked at her then, his brown eyes filled with what could only be betrayal. He looked as if she’d cut out his heart.
    “Kevin, no,” she breathed as she started toward him. “I’m—”
    He waited. “You’re what?”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Nina told you to wait, didn’t she?”
    Averil had to hold back the overpowering need to stomp her foot. “You always bring up Nina. Why do you hate my sister?”
    “You know I like Nina a lot. I bring her up because she’s always with us.”
    “That’s ridiculous. She’s a thousand miles away.”
    “No, she’s not. She’s the voice in your head. You talk to her every day for weeks until you two have a fight, and then you complain about her every day until you two make up. She’s the opinion you care about most.” He returned his attention to his computer screen. “It’s never you and me making a decision. It’s always the three of us.”
    She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but he wasn’t. Her and Nina’s last blowup had been about three weeks before, and they hadn’t spoken since. Funny—Averil couldn’t even remember what they’d been fighting about.
    She looked at Kevin. She could feel his pain. He wanted more, and as much as she wanted to give it to him, she couldn’t. The problem with Kevin was that he saw her as more capable than she could ever be. But how was she supposed to tell the man in her life to expect less of her?
    “I need more time,” she told him. “Please, stop pressuring me.”
    She waited, expecting him to say that